Improved manufacture of felt



UNITED STATES STEPHEN M. ALLEN, OF BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS.

IMPROVED MANUFACTURE OF FELT.

Specification forming part of Letters Patent No. 37,559, dated February3, 1863.

To all whom it may concern Be it known that I, STEPHEN M. ALLEN, ofBoston, in the county of Suffolk and State of Massachusetts, haveinvented a new and useful Improvement in the Manufacture of Felting; andI do hereby declare that the following is a full and exact descriptionof the same, wherein I have set forth the nature and principles of mysaid improvements, by which my invention may be distinguished from allothers of a similar class, together with such parts as I claim anddesire to have secured to me by Letters Patent.

In the manufacture of felt by the methods heretofore practiced suchmaterials have necessarily been employed as afforded in their naturalcondition a barbed or roughened surfaces and ends--that is, suchprojecting beards or filaments as would in the felting process becomeentangled or interlaced with each other, as this thorough intertwiningof the fibers is the foundation of the whole felting operation, andwithout which a firm and solid body could not be produced; but thematerials which afforded these requisites have hitherto been confined tothose of which the first cost is considerable, such as wool, hair, fur,&c., and the introduction of foreign substancessuoh as flax, hemp,china-grass, and other long-stapled fibers shortened to a proper lengthby cutting for felting-with a View to the cheapening of the product, hasbeen rendered practically impossible, except for the very coarsest andmost inferior products, both from the absence of filaments or beards ontheir surfaces and ends to insure a strong and perfect adhesion to eachother and to other felting substances and from the incapacity of theblunt ends of such fibers to absorb and retain colors. In fact any suchfibers, when shortened by cutting, are too stiff and brittle to bepractically available for felting, either when used separately or mixedwith other materials.

In order to fully understand the purposes and results of my improvement,it is important to bear in mind that it is the bearded or filamentousproperties of the fibers employed which are made use of to constitutefelt. The fineness, softness, and strength of which, as well as itscapacity to receive colors, &c., depend upon the number and fineness ofthe beards or filaments incorporated and interlaced with each othertherein.

My improvements have for their object the producing of a felt by anentirely new combination of substances, which shall be cheaper,

stronger, and possess a greater adaptability to receive and retaincolors, varnish, paint, Oll, japan, india-rnbber, 850., than feltmanufactured from the materials usually employed.

These desiderata I effect by combining the arate them into the length offiber required.

By thus operating upon the long-staple fibers a peculiar effect isproduced, their fibrils being completely stranded and separated fromeach other, and leaving their ends in. such a finelydivided state as toreadily unite and interlace with each other and with other substances,subjecting them to any ordinary felting process. Thus by this modeofdisintegrating and refining the fibers, bringing them into the exactcondition of the more expensive materials, like wool, fur, &c., of whichfelt is usually com posed, and producing from coarse substances whichhave hitherto been valueless for felting purposes fibrils which areexcellently adapted to combine and interlace with each other and withordinary felting stock.

The application ofcolors, varnish, india-rubher, 850., to felt made fromsubstances thus prepared and felted is much more effective than to anyproduct made from natural fibers or furs, because when the long-staplefibers are thus shortened by stranding their tubes are left open for theadmission of the colors, the ends of the fibril resembling the ends of astranded rope and acting like a brush to absorb and retain such liquidsas may be applied to them. Moreover, their brush-like ends, thussaturated with color, glazing, &c., form,when drying, so many ties tobind the surrounding materials firmly together in one mass. It will beevident that long-staple fibers shortened simply by cutting couldpossess neither of these advantages of taking colors and interlacingthemselves firmly with other fibers on account of the blunt shape oftheir ends.

The fineness and quality of the fabric produced by my improvements canof course be regulated at pleasure by stranding the ends of thelong-staple fibers more or less by applying more or less tensile strainto them and the proportions ofthe stranded fibers, and the naturalfibers, like wool, to be mixed together may be endlessly varied,accordingto the different purposes to which the felt is to be applied.

The mode by which I prefer to reduce and strand the long-staple fibersis to submit them to a tensile strain by means of rollers or otherdevices which will strain the fiber between two given points. Thisstrain in the direction of the length of the fiber may be combined ornot with torsion or other strains; but the effect must be such as toproduce the stranded ends in as filamentous or brush-like a condition aspossible. The fibers thus shortened and stranded may be then mixed withother felting materialssuch as fur, wool, &c.-in any desired proportionsand subjected to any of the well-known feltingprocesses. The felt maythen be colored, varnished, japanned, coated with india-rubber, orglazed, to which processes the felt made by my new mode is, ashereinbefore explained, peculiarly sensitive, by any proper methodheretofore used for such purposes.

The fibers to be shortened and stranded may be subjected to a chemicalprocess either before or after they are disintegrated for facilitatingtheir separation into fibrils. Thus they may be subjected to the actionof hot water or vapor, which will liberate their resinous matters, whichwill form small knobs or protuberances extending laterally across thefibers, and which will aid in causing their interlacing with andadhesion to each other.

Having thus described my improvement, what I claim as my'invention, anddesire to have secured to me by Letters Patent, is-

M y improvement in the manufacture of felt, which consists in combiningordinary felting materials,likc fur, wool, &c., with a short fibermade'or reduced in such a manner from longstaple fibrous materials, likeflax, hemp, jute, silk, china-grass, and similar substances, as to havethe peculiarities hereinabove described, whereby when so combined theycan be felted together by any suitable felting process.

STEPH EN M. ALLEN.

Witnesses:

JOSEPH GAVETT, ALBERT W. BROWN,

